By Joy Bergmann
A sedan crashed at the southeast corner of Amsterdam Avenue and West 96th Street around 12:34 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon, an NYPD spokesperson confirmed to WSR.
NYPD said one injured person was transported to an area hospital in “conscious and alert” condition. NYPD could not yet confirm if this person was the sedan’s driver.
Videos posted to the Citizen app show a LinkNYC wifi station appearing to be demolished as a result of the incident, with screen and base station debris scattered on the Amsterdam sidewalk.
The sedan may have hit a tree right outside the Key Food at Amsterdam and 96th as well, according to the video footage.
WSR will update this post if more information becomes available.
About a month ago it was on the NE corner
The traffic light that went down then has still not been repaired. Cars used to have a delayed yellow signal for a right turn but now it’s just chaos.
I hope the driver recovers soon.
You have to be traveling pretty fast to do that kind of damage
Not so sure about that. The doors look like they were removed by FDNY. The bending of the hood and all that does not take a particularly strong impact as one might think. Passenger cars are designed with crumple zones which absorb some of the impact force so it is not transferred to occupants. These crumple zones appear to be worse damage than it truly is. For example, the hood is designed to essentially fold in half with a front on impact.
My elderly neighbor passed away from a car crash at the intersection. It is pretty dangerous location.
The Plant Shed dining shed blocks the view forward that you would have if there were cars parked there instead. The DOT has done as bad a job as possible signing the right turn only lane. Drivers constantly illegally park in the right turn lane and trucks will all to often double park there in the travel lane. Oh, and it is a very busy pedestrian intersection.
Cars go too fast around those turns and don’t look.
A little more than a month since the last driver drove into a streetlight at the same intersection.
https://www.westsiderag.com/2023/07/23/lights-out-on-amsterdam-and-96th-street
Earlier this year a woman was killed by a driver there. https://www.westsiderag.com/2023/01/18/84-year-old-woman-dies-after-being-struck-by-van
12 people have been killed by drivers in the “zone of death” around the intersection since 2011. https://www.curbed.com/2023/01/upper-west-side-zone-pedestrian-death.html
When are the police, our community board, and our elected officials going to do something to put a stop to this?
The streetscape has worsened and become more confusing and dangerous since the installation of bike lanes.
how are the bike lanes a problem for these car crashes?
There’s already a red light camera there.
Actually, there isn’t. The camera is still there, but when they repaved the street a couple years ago, they never reinstalled the magnetic sensors in the pavement so the camera does not actually work.
There are three straight lanes, a bike lane, and two parking lanes on that block. One parking lane turns into a right turn only lane half way down the block. Maybe DOT should turn the turn lane into a full parking lane and add a curb extension to the sidewalk at the intersection. Turn the rightmost straight lane into a block long right turn only lane. The parking on the south side of 96 east of Amsterdam should be a loading zone up to the driveway for all deliveries. Double parked trucks should be fined and towed. Businesses should be engaged to make sure their delivery drivers are parking correctly.
Hey, what gives you the right to come up with a doable, sensible plan? 🤪
The whole intersection is too big and complicated. There are six lanes of traffic total going north including the bike lane and the two turn lanes, all of them with differently timed signals. And if you’re crossing the street, from the moment you step off one side of Amsterdam to the moment you get to the other you’re in traffic the whole way.
An elderly driver was speeding to make a right turn on 96th before the light changed, lost control of the vehicle, and crashed into a LinkNYC system and a tree. The driver was injured, but no one else was.
Whether walking or driving, I always find that intersection to be a challenge. Like others have mentioned, the yet to be replaced light with the arrow makes matters worse. Potentially unpopular thought here, and I LOVE PlantShed, but it’s past time for them to have to remove the massive shed outside of their store that takes up and entire lane of street for half of the block. They are not a restaurant, and use the shed primarily for storage in the busier months of business. With that gone, delivery trucks won’t need to double and triple park like they often do which clogs up this dangerous intersection.
All of 96th St from Amsterdam to the Westside Highway is an absolute mess. The city needs to do an analysis of the traffic patterns and resolve some key choke points. There need to be dedicated right turn signals on the downtown Broadway and West End Ave crossings, a left turn signal on Amsterdam and strict enforcement of not blocking the boxes on every corner. In a perfect world, the city would build a pedestrian bridge over 96th for families to safely get their kids to school, but we know that will never happen.
A pedestrian bridge!!! lol talk about an overreaction. Is there any of those in the whole of Manhattan?
There are a few, actually. The ones that come to mind are the ones over West Street at Chambers and a couple south of the World Trade Center. But West Street is very wide and very busy.
There are a couple others over highways (over the FDR and over the Henry Hudson), but I don’t think those should count, as there is no other way to get to the other side of the highways.
Someone is going to get killed at 96th and Broadway southbound lanes one day the way they let those cars going west cruise through red when it’s a clear green signal for pedestrians to walk north/south across the street. The whole intersection is a disaster waiting to happen. I’ve seen some close calls. The middle intersection crossing is often blocked by cars so pedestrians have to walk around them into the lanes where traffic is going. Madness.
More proof of the dangerous conditions on West 96th Street and in this area around West 96th Street, generally. As regards 4-wheeled gas- and electric-powered vehicles, it seems to have gotten more dangerous during the pandemic. Now, all types of E-vehicles and their users and pedestrians are also targets of traffic violators. When will it stop? When will our City Council respect the lives of NYC residents? Remember, politicos, we are voters and we are watching you.